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biography / portrait

"Been doin' this for a long time..." He's been around for a while now, this Hellberg... seen and heard in various contexts and constellations; Alimony and The Hellacopters, Nicke Andersson's and Scott Morgan's (The Rationals, Sonics Rendezvous Band) soul project The Solution, Kanzeon, Jaqee, Nationalteatern… It all started with frenetic rock'n'roll in West Swedish small-town Karlstad in the early 90s in the Wayne Kramer endorsed band Nymphet Noodlers, together with among others TSOOL's Martin Hederos and Mattias Bärjed. An EP and a full length album produced by Soundtrack front man Ebbot Lundberg was released before this, at the time, strangely unnoticed outfit disbanded in the mid 90s. Public accolade and press attention was the more frequent for Mattias Hellberg and Martin Hederos on their own. Their duo, with their stripped bare piano/harmonica/vocal reworking of some of rock 'n' rolls saddest songs, released two highly appreciated full length albums and an EP before they split up. The duo toured frequently domestically as well as abroad, and was handpicked as support act by Ryan Adams who claimed "They are one of my great favorites of all time, definitely top 10 on my list..." In 2004 Mattias Hellberg's first eponymously titled album was released. It was also met with very favorable reviews. The cliché "return to the roots" could be an adequate description of the new album "Out of the frying pan, into the woods", it could even be considered the logical follow up to the Nymphet Noodlers album. But most of all, the new album is a fruit of Mattias lifelong love with MUSIC, and mainly his early influences, garnered with some new findings on the way. The songs were written during a busy week in January 2008 when Mattias sat in the rehearsal studio writing and recording demos from ten am to six pm every day. After that the band; drummer Ludwig Dahlberg, The (International) Noise Conspiracy, Henrik Lindén, bass and Olle Hagberg, keyboards, both from The Whyte Seeds och Fox Machine, was assembled and rehearsed. With producer Torsten Larsson as sparring partner the tracks were laid down in the rehearsal studio during two days in May. Vocals, overdubs and mixing were made during the summer and now it’s here... So please, help yourselves to the Moose stew, feel free to search for influences, thefts and other fun stuff... And don't forget to turn up the volume! P.S. The name of the band, The White Moose, came about from a very real, and magical, meeting Mattias had with a white moose an early morning this summer in the woods of his native landscape of Wermland... (source: www.headstomp.com)